Category Archives: COLLECTIONS

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Page 56 “Ran into Jean Kennedy Smith in Bloomingdale’s in the men’s shirt department. We had the same salesgirl.” Page 72 “I reminded her that I saw her in Bloomingdale’s the other week when we both were in the shirt department, and she said, “Oh yes, those shirts were Christmas presents for my family.” Page…

I have been working on the complicated database for One Brown Shoe. It lists amongst other things the shoemakers names, shoes sizes in inches (l x w x h), and their provenance. The materials lists of bits and bobs found lying around one hundred houses read like poetry. My favourite: “Childhood shoe saved by mother,…

During these early days of near continuous breastfeeding and not sleeping and tiny constant changes I find myself thinking very often of Mother’s Days. In that community of forty-four mostly strangers’ daily records I am finding solace and sistership, humour and comfort. When I am wrestling with a gassy baby for hours at night I…

I have accidentally started to collect hand-whittled things. Whittling is worrying with props. And just worrying about one specific thing; a knife or fork, a feather, a little racing car. This collection in my studio surprised me just now by its existence. I thought I was just buying bits and bobs, but a few weeks…

I have been working on a project called One Brown Shoe, in which one hundred married couples from around the world secretly make brown shoes from bits and pieces around the house. I’m looking for ten more couples to take part, please get in touch if you’d like to or know anyone else who might….

Working on this residency has started to change my attitude to staying in one place. Before I would go out to look for ideas, inspiration, community. Now when Otto is still asleep in the morning or naps in the afternoon, I work upstairs. This rhythm has expanded our home from being a place which was…

Once every few days I receive an email from a woman, often a stranger to me, that shares every moment of a specific day lived as a mother somewhere in the world. This may be the job I used to dream about having when I was a child. I have just typed up three new…

Every day Otto asks me a thousand times what things are. He knows now that everything has a name, but not that the names stay the same. He points at an object several times with the same quizzical/hopeful expression each time. In order to be the patient parent I pretend to be, I imagine my…

I have started an archive of objects that were removed from babies mouths for safety reasons. In collecting together this group of artefacts i’m interested in marking the instantaneous shift that happens as the objects are discovered and fished out. From near-tragedy to absurd trophy in a moment. And this, several times every day. For…